Dear Grandson:
The other day I went up to our local Christian bookstore and saw a ‘Honk If You Love Jesus’ bumper sticker. I was feeling particularly sassy that day because I had just come from a thrilling choir performance, followed by a thunderous prayer meeting. So, I bought the sticker and put it on my bumper. Boy, am I glad I did, what an uplifting experience that followed. I was stopped at a red light at a busy intersection, just lost in thought about the Lord and how good he is, and I didn’t notice that the light had changed. It is a good thing someone else loves Jesus because if he hadn’t honked, I’d never have noticed. I found that lots of people love Jesus!
While I was sitting there, the guy behind started honking like crazy. And then he leaned out of his window and screamed, ‘For the love of God! Go! Go! Go! Jesus Christ, GO!’ What an exuberant cheerleader he was for Jesus! Everyone started honking! I just leaned out my window and started waving and smiling at all those loving people. I even honked my horn a few times to share in the love! There must have been a man from Florida back there because I heard him yelling something about a sunny beach. I saw another guy waving in a funny way with only his middle finger stuck up in the air. I asked my young teenage grandson in the back seat what that meant. He said it was probably a Hawaiian good luck sign or something. Well, I have never met anyone from Hawaii, so I leaned out the window and gave him the good luck sign right back. My grandson burst out laughing. Why even he was enjoying this religious experience!
A couple of the people were so caught up in the joy of the moment that they got out of their cars and started walking towards me. I bet they wanted to pray or ask what church I attended, but this is when I noticed the light had changed. So, I waved at all my brothers and sisters grinning, and drove on through the intersection. I noticed that I was the only car that got through the intersection before the light changed again and felt kind of sad that I had to leave them after all the love we had shared. So I slowed the car down, leaned out the window and gave them all the Hawaiian good luck sign one last time as I drove away.
Praise the Lord for such wonderful folks!
Will write again soon,
Love grandma
I’d like to think that I have a fairly wide range of musical tastes. Everything from Hard Rock to Classical and anything in between. At one time, I actually owned a record collection of almost 900 LP albums. With moving around the country so much, it became a real hassle to constantly box them up and lug them around. Those babies were heavy! I eventually sold them all and then created a new collection of over 400 CDs. With the advent of MP3 players and iTunes, my CD collection has pretty much stopped growing. I’ve converted all my CDs to digital music files and now have a collection of about 6500 songs on my computer. It’s nice being able to create tailored playlists and download them to my iPods.
Anyway, I thought I’d start a little section on the blog dedicated to music. I’m going to pick a group and song that I like, give a little background on it, and include a video link, if there is one. If you have a song that you’d like to see included here, let me know. I’ll give it a spin. So, without further ado, and in no particular order, I officially start the Music category.
My first selection is the song, Far Away, by Nickelback. This group hails from Canada and has been around since 1995. The song is from their fifth album, All the Right Reasons. It’s their latest album and it was released back in 2005. This album is not a one-hit album. It contains many excellent songs such as If Everyone Cared, Savin’ Me, Photograph, and Next Contestant. This is their best album, IMHO, and I highly recommend it.
Click here to view the video. BTW, this is a nicely done video. It doesn’t go overboard with a lot of high-tech video effects. It’s a nice story centered around a fireman and it has a somewhat surprising ending. I think it’s worth 4-5 minutes of your time.
Click here for more information on Nickelback.
Those that know me know that I’m not a chef by any stretch of the imagination. My prowess in the kitchen consists of boiling water for pasta and heating leftovers. I’ve also been known to get a soda or beer from the fridge all on my very own! Anyway, my wife left on a trip this morning to visit our daughter. Suppertime eventually came around and I opened up the refrigerator to see what was there. For a normal person, there was an array of items to choose from. I imagine there were enough ingredients to concoct many a fine meal. Unfortunately, I’m not a normal person. What I did find was a Tupperware dish of leftover white rice and a bottle of salsa. Voila, spicy ricey! Yes siree, Bob. Just empty the rice on the plate, pour some salsa on the rice, mix it up, and heat it in the microwave. And it was actually pretty tasty, if I don’t say so myself.
There you have it folks. The new Asian-Mexican dish that will sweep the country. You read it here first.
Here’s the recipe!
Ingredients
1 cup rice
1 cup salsa
Cook the rice (however that’s done), mix in the salsa and spread it out on a plate. For that special touch, drop a dollop of guacamole in the middle of the pile.
One of my most prized possessions is the little stuffed animal you see on the left. It used to be a very bright pink but after 17 years of exposure to the sun, it’s faded quite a bit. It was the first Christmas present I ever got from my daughter. She was in 1st grade at the time and I think it cost her a whole dollar. The elementary school she attended had a bunch of items that the kids could buy for Christmas gifts. I think it was during the period of time when the “Land Before Time” dinosaur videos were popular. She probably thought it was the coolest present you could ever give to someone. I imagine I acted pretty excited for her when I opened it up.
Pinkie has pretty much been on display in my office at home or work since then. I can’t say that it fits too well with the other office décor. Pink is NOT a real great men’s color! I probably won’t be getting any calls in the near future to be on the cover of Interior Design Magazine, either. However, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. It’s funny how little things or events that didn’t seem all that important at the time have a lot more meaning as time passes by. I’ve gotten some nice gifts from my daughter since then, but none will probably be more memorable than Pinkie.
A very successful lawyer parked his brand-new Lexus in front of his office, ready to show it off to his colleagues. As he got out, a truck passed too close and completely tore the door off of the driver’s side. The counselor immediately grabbed his cell phone, dialed 911, and within minutes a policeman pulled up. Before the officer had a chance to ask any questions, the lawyer started screaming hysterically. His Lexus, which he had just picked up the day before, was now completely ruined and would never be the same, no matter what the body shop did to it.
When the lawyer finally wound down from his ranting and raving, the officer shook his head in disgust and disbelief. “I can’t believe how materialistic you lawyers are,” he said. “You are so focused on your possessions that you don’t notice anything else.” “How can you say such a thing?” asked the lawyer.
The cop replied, “Don’t you know that your left arm is missing from the elbow down? It must have been torn off when the truck hit you.”
“Ahhh!” screamed the lawyer. “Where’s my Rolex!”
The Proboscis Monkey is one weird looking animal. It’s a reddish-brown arboreal monkey that is indigenous to Borneo. They’ve got big potbellies and a really long white tail. If you want to learn more about this monkey, click here.
There’s also a website that has a pretty cool video showing them feeding and flying through the trees. (click here) The monkeys don’t show up in the video until about 20 seconds into the clip.
A man boarded an airplane and took his seat. As he settled in, he glanced up & saw the most beautiful woman boarding the plane. He soon realized she was heading straight towards his seat. As fate would have it, she took the seat right beside his. Eager to strike up a conversation he blurted out, “Business trip or pleasure?” She turned, smiled and said, “Business. I’m going to the Annual Nymphomaniacs of America Convention in Boston.”
He swallowed hard. Here was the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen sitting next to him and she was going to a meeting of nymphomaniacs. Struggling to maintain his composure, he calmly asked, “What’s your business role at this convention?” Lecturer,” she responded. “I use information that I have learned from my personal experiences to debunk some of the popular myths about sexuality.” “Really?” he said. “And what kind of myths are there?” “Well,” she explained, “one popular myth is that African-American men are the most well-endowed of all men, when in fact it is the Native American Indian who is most likely to possess that trait. Another popular myth is that Frenchmen are the best lovers when actually it is men of Jewish descent who are the best. I have also discovered that the lover with absolutely the best stamina is the Southern Redneck.”
Suddenly the woman became a little uncomfortable and blushed. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I shouldn’t really be discussing all of this with you. I don’t even know your name.”
“Tonto,” the man said, “Tonto Goldstein, but my friends call me Bubba.”
“It’s the friends you can call up at 4 AM that matter.” Marlene Dietrich
I was thinking of what to write about the other day and the idea of friendship came to mind. Originally, I was going to call it 3am Friends but when I googled the term, I found that someone had beat me to it. Then I googled 4am Friends and, lo and behold, the above quote popped up. I guess I wasn’t going to be too original after all.
Growing up, we make and break friendships as a normal course of events. Having moved around so much during my lifetime, short-term friendships were a fact of life. You usually have good intentions of keeping them up after you move away. You call them up or email them and sometimes make a trip back to visit. Eventually, however, the friendship just seems to fade away. It’s not that you didn’t value the friendship, but separation and your current state of affairs tends to consume you.
If you’re lucky enough, you’ll meet someone that will become a true 4am friend. You value their opinion and judgment. They’re the ones that you can say almost anything to and they won’t prejudge you. You’re comfortable opening up and feel safe in their company. They’ll listen, try to understand your problem or situation and offer encouragement or guidance, if needed. These are very special people and you should feel fortunate if you know one.
In today’s world, we seem to be growing apart from others even as the world gets closer to us. Technology brings us to all corners of the Earth and any kind of information is ours with just a few short keystrokes. When you start looking back at life, the only things that seem to have real meaning are the relationships that you’ve made with your family and friends. All the other stuff is just noise.
The next time you’re with a friend or family member, try to give them a little extra time. Are you a 4am friend?
Welcome to my blog. From what I’ve read, to be a successful blogger you need to find a topic that you’re passionate about. If that’s the case, I probably won’t be around too long. I don’t know what I’m going to talk about. I just plan on picking a topic and see where it takes me. However, I do plan on having a decent amount of posts to the Humor section. I’ll just have to see how things play out and take it a week at a time. If you have any suggestions or comments, please let me know.
Let the blogging begin!
